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I read this in a recent murmur and it has me concerned...

Kevin Siembieda wrote:...I had a nice visit with a couple of local, Michigan, fan-friends. We had a wonderful and stimulating conversation about Rifts® and Palladium Fantasy® and "the art" of role-playing. I really enjoy these two people, so it was a lot of fun for me. I even bounced some ideas on them concerning a couple of secret projects, which they loved. They also volunteered to help us ship out Wave One of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ later this Summer. Awesome. We are going to need a lot of volunteers for a couple of weeks to get everything shipped as quickly as possible to our 5,300+ Kickstarter people.

What concerns me is that it will be an unqualified volunteer group of people getting together to ship our product that we paid for, out to us. That spells mistakes made to me. I'm not saying that mistakes are going to happen, but with everything in life they do and I'd feel a whole lot better if it were a paid team of qualified people shipping out the product to the 5,342 individual backers. I can already see the mixups happening that PB will have to pay to correct when backers get the wrong stuff. Add in International shipping and multiple waves and this does not sit well with me.

Don't worry dude. I think it's a good idea. In fact, if I have a day free when the time comes, I'll volunteer to go over and help personally. I'd keep an eye out for your stuff.

Helping could be just as simple as tapping up and moving boxes.

Still sounds like a risk that may end up costing them more than it would to hire professional help for a few hours.

I was expecting you to say, "And now I'm very worried."

Maybe we can Skype you in on someone's smart phone for QC?

Who else should do it? A fullfillment house PB would need to pay?

A lot of times motivated volunteers to better work to begin with.

Oh wow... 5,342 shipments, and they plan on doing it by themselves, maybe with some volunteers? And there will be two waves of this? *shakes head* That is a logistical nightmare just waiting to happen. I believe that Palladium is going to find themselves in a world of hurt when it comes time to start shipping.

Just for fun, let's say each shipment takes an average of 10 minutes to prepare. That is approximately 890 man hours to do just wave one. For sake of argument, let's say they can get 40 hours a week dedicated to just the shipping, with 4 dedicated shippers. They would be looking at a minimum of 5 and a half weeks of work to ship the first wave out. Using this estimate, they are looking at having to start shipping by the beginning of July at the latest to have any hope of having wave one completed before GenCon. Of course, factor in the 2 week prep time they tend to need for GenCon, then you are looking at needing to start at the middle of June. And that would be with absolutely nothing going wrong. Of course they can increase the number of people working on it, or find ways to reduce the average amount of time needed for each shipment. No matter how you look at it, though, they have their work cut out for them.

Of course, this is all estimates, though, and for all I know they may be much more efficient than this, or less efficient. I was just having some fun playing with the numbers.

-Chris

Make it an OH event.

if there are only 6 of them and they just brought in 2 more they have increased shipping productivity to 133%

Seriously though. I'd be happy to volunteer to help out on this.

Anyone else in the area think they might have time when it rolls around? We could form a Volunteer Reserve now and be ready to help if asked.

that sounds like a terrible idea. I don't think you realize how complex it can be to package and ship thousands of orders that all have different levels of add ons

When my wife and I was there on Friday, picking up our copy of the pfrpg hardcover. He asked if we would help and we said hel ya.

If it helps I drive a forklift for a major car parts distributor, and before that all I did was packing and shipping. Some orders had over a 100 different parts with mixed quantities. And my wife is the receiving manager for a major book store. Where she handles all customer orders also.

I think it is awesome of you, and I feel better hearing you have experience, but the fact is I don't think most people thought he would be soliciting that kind of help to ship the backers their stuff.

If it's well organized, it shouldn't be a problem. If not, then perhaps we could help with that as well. Anything you do can have a risk. Not having help could cause fatigue for the few shipping it all, which could also increase chances for a slip up.

I have some experience in organizing teams shipping millions of dollars worth of stuff across the world (e.g. surgical trays with multiple instruments, counted, recounted then packed into a tray, then into a metal box with customs slips, then loaded and balanced into a connex and schematics made of the load plan.) . Though I grant you this will be way different than packing and shipping connexes, at least I'll like helping get people their RRT stuff, if help is wanted. Besides, Grug and I go way back. Should be a solid team.

And don't forget that this isn't going to be as easy as grabbing a box of this, two boxes of these, and a box of that. From what I recall, while the backers should be getting their stuff before the retail channels, it was also said that the backers were just going to be getting the parts in bags - nothing in retail boxes.

I can see that leading to all sorts of confusion, especially if all the sprues are the same color.

exactly my thoughts Steve

That would make it more challenging.

Since this may be summer, if it's hot, we'll need to make sure we have lots of water on hand and maybe some electrolytes, we don't want any hypokalemia problems. Anyone have a previous heat injury? Will have to mark them with some bright tape on the arm or something and keep on eye on them if it gets too hot. I'm feeling motivated toady. HOOAH!

I know people want to help. I hope they have some kind of insurance to cover all the possible mixups that might go out if they choose the volunteer team in lieu of the pro packing team.

That's what I have Tri Care for baby.

A detailed checking process has been mapped out.







Alex Marciniszyn

good to know.

Detailed checking process, qualified volunteers... I love it when a plan comes together!

I'll say that when we receive our packages, whenever that is and not before. I'm still skeptical.

Think that the package will be there, and it'll be there. A mother beautiful package, and it's gonna be there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vypGPc2LVFo

It isn't me I'm worried about. It is them having to reship stuff to Canada or across the ocean that really bothers me. Shipping to Canada is prohibitively expensive. Nobody sets out to make mistakes, but with so many orders at stake with so many various parts to package and ship I hope for their sake any mistakes happen to the US orders as that will be an easier/cheaper fix.

Regarding 'bits in bags', they said that "wave one" stuff would be in its retail packaging (back when it was just a retail "wave one"), and now that there are two backer waves, "wave one" is the same for both.

So there shouldn't be any baggies. Everything should be in its nice little retail box, core box and expansions alike.

Regarding Shipping: 8 BCs to Canada for my crew. Man, that's gonna sting. And the second time around probably won't be much better.

I know there is a lot more than just your crew that ordered in Canada.

Never said there wasn't.

Quite the non-sequitur.

Wish I lived near by, I would SO help with this!

AlexM wrote:A detailed checking process has been mapped out.

This doesn't make things better. No offense to you Alex but we were told last year the game was 98% done, so considering the way things are going with RRT and NG-2 this line doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Grug wrote:When my wife and I was there on Friday, picking up our copy of the pfrpg hardcover. He asked if we would help and we said hel ya.

If it helps I drive a forklift for a major car parts distributor, and before that all I did was packing and shipping. Some orders had over a 100 different parts with mixed quantities. And my wife is the receiving manager for a major book store. Where she handles all customer orders also.

Thank you for stepping up and helping out!

While I'm not super excited about the push for volunteers, I myself volunteer at conventions for a friend's business, so it'd be a bit hypocritical of me to balk too strongly.

Obviously they need solid QA happening, to screen their people and to make sure checks and balances are in place, but at the end of the day, if they can get trustworthy warm bodies on hand to shave a few days or weeks off the rather significant undertaking that is lined up, I guess that's how it's happening.

That said, aren't the European packages being bundled and sent over there for distribution? Am I mistaken on that? I could swear I remember that being mentioned in an update last year or something, and it'd likely trim a significant portion off that 5k'ish. Also keep in mind that a portion (5%?) didn't provide their funding, which could shave a couple hundred off that figure, and over 600 are below the Battle Cry, meaning they're either getting just a Rick (wave 2), the art pack, or the core box. That'll help with some of the shipping considerations, assuming there weren't too many of them that upgraded with the Pledge Manager, at least.

sounds complicated

I hadn't really given thought to the actual logistical time frame of sending out 5000+Packages, worth $100s each all over the place. It's not like they're all 100% the same and you just print out shipping labels and walk down a line slapping them on. Some people bought multiple sets or different numbers of them etc. Sorting out the order. Double checking it. Triple checking it. Boxing, and lets be serious, with each one worth $100s you gotta box them well. Sealing them. Addressing them. Putting them in the ship pile, while checking them off your list. Making sure your list isn't the same as the other guy's list.

The estimate above was 4 people putting in 40 hour weeks and it still took over a month. The volunteers aren't going to be putting in 40 hour weeks.

Just arranging for the pick ups is going to be hairy. It's not like you can just slip these things in a mailbox on the corner. You're going to have to organize dedicated pick up's for 100s of boxes at a time. Or take 100s of boxes at a time to the post (or UPS or whereever). And even then, you're talking about dozens of those pick ups/drop offs. Even if they ship 200 boxes at a time, you're still talking about having to arrange for 25 trucks to pick up these loads. Now granted they're not going to be heavy but it's not like the shipping people (USPS or UPS or Fedex whomever) have 25 trucks just sitting around waiting to pick up loads. Sure, it likely would be the same truck a number of times, but the point remains.

And if they have tracked shipping? That's even more work.

Wow.... I really hadn't given thought to that aspect of it. It's going to take weeks to months to ship these things, -after- they arrive. And that's just boxing them up and getting them in the mail.

usually in this kind of circumstance they have UPS or whoever drop off a trailer and Palladium would load it with the packages separated and designated for specific areas. then when the trailer is packed a driver will pick it up and deliver it to the distribution hub.

could be multiple trailers, but they are big so I don't see it taking too many even for all the orders.

I've never heard of UPS dropping off a trailer like a construction waste company, or a moving company. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but I've never heard of that sort of thing. Even if they did, would you be willing to pack 5000 boxes, upwards of a million and a half dollars worth of stuff into a container, under the ultra high tech security..... of a pad lock?

People drive around looking for the Moving containers and break into them all the time.

A daily pickup arrangement seems far more sensible. Aim to knock off X boxes per day and at 4pm (or whenever) a vehicle swings by and gets loaded down to get them in the system. Then they have 24 hours to get as many done as possible (obviously they don't need to work overnight, but they aren't restricted to 9 to 5 either) before the next load needs to be ready.

Edit: as for the number of packages, remember that European backers are having their stuff distributed from within Europe, so however many hundreds or more of those boxes won't need to be attended to, just making sure that enough of each core/expansion box is shipped over to that location. Maybe it shaves 10% off, maybe 20%, but every couple hundred fewer that need to go out from the warehouse could save days from what they need to work on in house.

Zachary The First wrote:

AlexM wrote:A detailed checking process has been mapped out.







Alex Marciniszyn

I will say I’ve never had an issue with anything from Palladium (post-Crisis) being shipped incorrectly or in inadequate packaging. On the contrary, items have always been boxed up quite nicely, with consideration given to protecting the product. They know what they’re doing on the shipping front, and I trust whatever procedures they have in place or have developed. I’m sure they’ll have checks in place to make sure any additional crew follow suit.

I've seldom had a problem either Zach. Thing is Palladium's not had 5000+ Boxes of product worth $100s to $1000s per, to ship out all at one time, that's already really late, either. I mean you mess up one box and that's over $100 in product that disappears. People volunteering off the street... say 10 boxes are messed up and that's over a grand in loss. Understand there's 5000+ boxes to go out.... That's alot of money to trust in the hands of volunteers. And the time frame needed to do so is going to be large. These aren't sand bags filled with dirt and tossed in a pile. I forget what the minimum physical buy in was but I think the average is like $200 to $250 per isn't it?

And yeah Forar, the daily pick up type thing was what I was envisioning too, but it takes effort to set up such and it's contingent on your shipment being ready when the brown truck backs up to the dock. Then someone is loading the 100 or 100s of boxes per, and someone's verifying which boxes were loaded, and received. (Because you don't want to load 100 boxes and the ups guy saying "i only got 90" when he gets to the hub. You gotta get verification on both sides. UPS doesn't want someone going 'We loaded 100 boxes" if there's only 90 in the truck).

It's not impossible. People do this stuff every day, but it's usually people who's job it is to do this sort of stuff every day. The shipping of these things is going to be horrid.

Actually you can call ups for a trailer drop off, my work get one dropped off every day. Then they come and pick it up when you call them for a trailer pick up, or around your close of business. Sometimes it's after business hours but not usually.

Of course there is reason to be concerned, but really it's not that hard to pick, pack and ship packages with 98% accuracy. And until we know what we're dealing with from the supplier (not palladium but the makers of the final product) it's hard to even judge what it will be like.

A good plan of attack is this though,

Step 1: Unload product from trailer.
Step 2: Check the packing slip against what has came in. If everything is groovy move onto step 3, if not stop and call the supplier.
Step 3: Organize the products, separating every product into its own place in the warehouse.
Step 4: Assign pulling duties to two people, after both have pulled their orders. They then check each others order. If everything is good hand off to the packagers, If not correct the problem, check the parts against the order. Then hand off to the packagers.
Step 5: Packagers check the parts against the order while over packing the parts, tape the box closed and send it to the shipper.
Step 6: Shipper takes the order puts it into the system slaps the label onto the box(s). Then puts the labeled box onto the pallet. Once pallet is full it gets loaded onto the ups trailer. Typically the only thing ups wants separated are envelopes and the different shipping colors (different shipping methods).
Step 7: Consumer gets package, opens it with excitement and is happy! Hopefully. ..

Grug has it right on the nose. I worked for a printing company and we did irregular jobs all the time and some of them were very large in volume. The trailers were always left there for days or even weeks at a time depending on how big the job and the delivery company used. If it was UPS it was usually the trailer showed up right as production started or as close to it leaving as possible and stuff was packed right off the printer onto pallets which were wrapped and put on the trailer. Once it was full they sent a driver to pick up the trailer. I never checked the lock on the driver side of the trailer, but I loaded plenty of UPS ones driving the fork when it was my jobs getting loaded so I could keep an eye on them.

Even if they had a trailer on site, it has some problems.

An 8 hour day has 480 minutes. Lets assume they take lunch off the clock. They get to work on time and get back from lunch on time. 480 minutes.
To be honest, 10 minutes PER package seems a bit much, I think I could pack one in 5 if I were doing it and getting paid but I haven't done so for professional work. But using the equation above 10 minutes per package would be 48 packages a day, for an 8 hour work day. That seems a bit light.
If you half the estimated time of packaging, to 5, you'd end up at 96 packages. 5 sounds about right from pulling up the order. Filling the order with the right boxes, double checking to make sure you have the right invoice items. Packing them. Extra packing material (News paper from palladium)Taping up the box. Putting on the label. checking it off your packing list and moving it to the ship pile/stack/whatever.

If one person is putting out 96 packages a day, and we assume they have two people on it constantly (Unless they're shutting down the business untill it's done, there's still the day to day work that has to be done to keep Palladium going) that would be 192 packages a day. Now if each box only had $100 worth of product in it, that's over $19,000 that's being stacked up in the UPS container, secured by a padlock. Being honest, that seems a bit light too.

If we up it to 4 people working twice as fast as indicated in the previous post, at 1package per 5 min, you're looking at 384 packages a day, and at $100 per you're looking at $34,800 of product per day being put into the container. And that's just using a nice round $100 number. I didn't buy in but I think I remember the average being $200 to$250? If we assume the upper end of the average, you're looking at almost $100,000 going out. Is palladium going to hire a guard for the UPS trailer? Is Palladium honestly going to entrust 100K per day to volunteers off the street? Don't get me wrong guys. I'm sure you're great people but I wouldn't trust any of you with $100,000 of my business/customer's money/product, per day. Now, someone's going to say "Well they'll be supervised, Pepsi!" Yeah I understand that, but we're still talking about 2 to 4 people pumping out roughly 200 to 400 packages a day, at roughly$35,000 to $100,000 per day in product.

That would make me sweat. Bringing in 'volunteers' to do such? *Shakes head* Wow.

Except this is going to be happening during the summer.

They probably don't want a trailer filled with boxes full of plastic baking in the sun for days or weeks at a time.

Ehh. Yeah it's summer, but summer in MI isn't quite the same as summer elsewhere. It can get warm. Very warm, but it's rarely hot.
Now, a trailer will magnify this and you're right. tiny tiny plastic parts in a metal trailer probably isn't that great, it's going to warp and what not, but it wouldn't be quite as bad as say, Atlanta or Miami, or Houston or such.

I was using the "Trailer dropped off in the morning, picked up in the afternoon" Senerio.

I doubt they're going to be packing $100,000s and $100,000s of stuff into a trailer and letting them sit either... gods I hope not.

They are in a business park and I have seen trailers sitting on the other properties. I don't think that will be any issue.

Even if they could park a trailer in place for weeks at a time, if they want to get some of the heat off them, firing a couple hundred packages into the system daily would be the stronger play. Assuming the costs aren't terribly different, the sooner they start getting packages en masse into the system, the sooner people can start doing unboxing videos on Youtube for those 'mouth watering minis' and start assembling, priming, painting, etc.

I believe Dwarven Forge used a similar system with USPS; daily pick ups, and I think they even got a discount on costs based on raw volume. Similar backer numbers, much heavier packages but probably not quite as large (I'm assuming an RRT core box will be a fairly sizable hunk of cardboard, considering it'll contain the sprues for 34 figures) and they knocked them out in about 2 weeks including tracked shipping. There were some snags and issues along the way, but as far as I know DF is 'even smaller' than Palladium (no idea what help they might've hired or brought in).

And before anyone points out that the DF campaign was in sets of tiles; between painted/unpainted and the add ons, I'm fairly certain that campaign was at least as complex as the dozen'ish items that make up Wave 1 (Core Box, 6 expansion boxes, and a handful of random stuff like decals, dice and command point tokens).

It's totally doable.

Though admittedly, they did so in October, without the pressure of Gencon looming in the background.

And weren't trying to run other business on the side.

Pepsi Jedi wrote:I've never heard of UPS dropping off a trailer like a construction waste company, or a moving company. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but I've never heard of that sort of thing. Even if they did, would you be willing to pack 5000 boxes, upwards of a million and a half dollars worth of stuff into a container, under the ultra high tech security..... of a pad lock?

People drive around looking for the Moving containers and break into them all the time.

All the major shipping companies do when you have a big enough order. I worked at a wine distributor, we did it all the time nthe entrance of the container is backed up tight with the shipping dock. And the trailer isn't loaded till day of pickup. And depending on when that is, they are going long days to fill it. Thankfully forklifts usually drive right in for quick deposit at the front of the trailer.

Pepsi Jedi wrote:That would make me sweat. Bringing in 'volunteers' to do such? *Shakes head* Wow.

Michigan does get hot, and very muggy sometimes. Not near Ali Al Salem in August hot, but if the humidity gets high it can be rough. Got you covered.

Jerell wrote:Since this may be summer, if it's hot, we'll need to make sure we have lots of water on hand and maybe some electrolytes, we don't want any hypokalemia problems. Anyone have a previous heat injury? We'll have to mark them with some bright tape on the arm or something and keep on eye on them if it gets too hot.

A little composite risk management can go a long way.

Jerell wrote:

Pepsi Jedi wrote:That would make me sweat. Bringing in 'volunteers' to do such? *Shakes head* Wow.

Michigan does get hot, and very muggy sometimes. Not near Ali Al Salem in August hot, but if the humidity get high it can be rough. Got you covered.

I live in MI. I have for almost 12 years.

I grew up in the south. lol

Michigan gets warm, but very seldom 'hot'. North Carolina gets HOT. Michigan gets warm for bits and hot two or three days a year.

Still, "Warm" compounded by a metal trailer sitting in the sun will be 'hot' inside, and would likely frak up plastic sprews if left to sit in the heat.

I really do hate be disagreeable but the Carolinas only get warm compared to Kuwait in August.

I would hope at no time, would plastic pieces be baking (read melting) in a trailer in direct sunlight.

Carolina's have humidity and break 100. That's hot enough for me.

Point being that they're alot hotter than it is 1000 miles north here in MI. It gets warm up here and only hot a few days a year.

Neither one is in Kuwait, but yes you'd be correct in that it doesn't get to 130 in the Carolina's but pretty much when you break 100 it's 'hot.'.

Anyway, I would hope as well, that the plastic wouldn't be baking in the trailer in direct sunlight, but that's exactly the sort of situation that's been out lined by a few above. I.E. if the trailer is dropped off and loaded with all 5000+ boxes, then yes, the boxes will be in the metal trailer for days if not weeks in the middle of summer. Depending on which number's your using, they're only loading a few 100 to 400 a day, and if the trailer sat there for the entire length instead of daily pick ups then you'd be looking at 2 weeks or so, with 4 people working non stop, 8 hour days, 5 days a week. If they don't have 4 people working at that (totally estimated!) Rate, the sit time would extend.

That's why someone pointed out, "Hey don't forget this is in the middle of summer and it might not be a good idea to stack up a million, four in product, in plastic pieces in a metal trailer for a week." lol.